Porky's Poultry Plant is a 1936 Looney Tunes short directed by Frank Tashlin.
Plot[]
Porky Pig is running a poultry farm. Among the birds he tends to there include chickens, ducks, and geese. Porky takes very good care of them. When one little chick can't get any feed before the other birds get to it, Porky fakes them out with acting like he threw some, before letting the little chick eat it all up, leaving it very content while the other birds return in surprise to discover what happened. When three other chicks can't get some worms before they escape into the ground, Porky lures them back out like a snake charmer for the chicks to eat.
However, it is revealed that Porky's farm is threatened by a hawk, who has kidnapped several of his hens in the past, and presumably ate them, leaving Porky heartbroken, but then enraged, vowing to get rid of the hawk once and for all next time he returns. It just so happens that the hawk does return, looking for its next meal. When one hen, Henrietta, spots the hawk's shadow looming and circling ominously on the ground and panics, she alerts Porky, who sounds the alarm, and most of his birds are able to take cover before the hawk can get to them as he swoops the ground, trying to grab one of them. Porky attempts to return fire with his shotgun, but ends up being sent by the recoil crashing into an apple tree. Soon, it appears that the hawk has left empty-handed, but as Henrietta lets her chicks back out, she soon finds she's missing one. To her horror, she sees that the hawk has captured her baby and is flying away in triumph as the chick cries in fear that it is done for.
Henrietta warns Porky that the hawk took her baby, and deciding now is the time for revenge, Porky takes off in pursuit in his plane. However, after he shoots off the hawk's tail feathers with his machine gun, the hawk calls for backup, and the rest of his buddies arrive to torment Porky, culminating in where they manage to disarm Porky of his machine gun and use it to take out his plane's propeller. They think it's all over for Porky now and they'll have free reign to raid his poultry farm whenever they want, but Porky crashes into his windmill, using the windmill blades as his new propeller to get back in the fight. Seeing Porky is coming back for retribution, the hawks decide to play a little football keep-away with the chick as the football, but one of them ends up fumbling the ball, and as the chick plummets towards the ground, Porky manages to rescue it just in time.
When the hawks angrily attempt to attack again, Porky has had enough, and discharges a smog smokescreen from his plane's exhaust in their faces. Suffocating from the toxic fumes, the hawks drop out of the sky like stones. Porky's hens quickly dig a grave for their hated adversaries, and once the hawks drop into the grave, the hens cover it up, burying the hawks and ending their threat. The rooster respectfully lays a rose on the grave in respect for the farm's fallen foes.
Porky then lands his plane and returns the chick to Henrietta. As she walks away in relief with her baby safely back in her hands, she spots what she thinks is the shadow of one hawk that survived what happened earlier and flees in panic. Seeing that, Porky grabs his rifle, ready to enact retribution on the lone survivor, but soon finds that, as it turns out, it was just his weather vane that spooked Henrietta, much to his amusement at the false alarm.
Availability[]
Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 4, Disc Two
Porky Pig
Porky Pig 101, Disc 1
Streaming[]
Notes[]
- This is Frank Tashlin's first cartoon with Warner Bros. as a director. He had briefly been an animator with the studio in 1933 but left after a dispute with Leon Schlesinger over rights to a comic strip Tashlin had created. He would stay with the studio until 1938, departing to become a writer for Disney, but would return once more in 1942.
- This cartoon is Carl Stalling's first role as a musical director. He came to Warner Bros. from the Ub Iwerks studio and would stay for over twenty years.
- This cartoon is noted for its dramatic camera angles and filmic techniques typically seen in live-action movies, something Tashlin specialized in. Later, when he moved to directing live-action pictures, many would note that he brought cartoon elements to his pictures.
- This is the official last cartoon to use the old "That's all Folks!" script style introduced since "The Fire Alarm" (1935), although it does get used twice in "Milk and Money" (1936) and "Porky's Duck Hunt" (1937) for their special ending titles.
- Some animation from this cartoon was reused in "Chicken Jitters" and "Wise Quacks" (1939).
- When Porky Pig rushes to the barn, a cart with the name "Millar" written on it is shown in the background, a reference to gag writer Melvin Millar.
Gallery[]
_-_Enemy.jpg "Porky's Poultry Plant (1936) - Enemy.jpg (288 KB)")
References[]
- ↑ Catalog of Copyright Entries
- ↑ (3 October 2022) Cartoon Voices of the Golden Age, Vol. 2 (in en). BearManor Media, page 45.
- ↑ https://tralfaz.blogspot.com/2019/11/waltzing-with-leon-schlesinger.html